...once had a friend

I wrote a song one time about a friend of mine.

He had given everyone the impression that he had written several songs which turned out to be my writing. I had helped him with them and told him to keep any rights or revenues to them, thinking that I was doing him a favor; something he could call his own. Right

He had brought me several ideas for songs he was working on but they were pretty rough and I thought it would be nice to help him get them to where they made sense and could be recorded.

To make a long story short, He brought in a band from out of town and we began recording the songs. Lo and behold I begin to hear some of my other songs along with these and guess who was supposed to have written those as well? Right.

Needless to say the project went south, for him at least, and it pretty much damaged our relationship to the point of 'no return'. I finished the project with the band. They never paid me all that they owed for the sessions and mix, but I made some pretty good friends in the end. The one friend... he drifted off and we never really mended any fences to speak of and he lost everything he had in a divorce a few months later.

I did get a good song out of it though.

Fast forward if you will a good dozen years or more and here comes a friend of this same 'friend'.

The old saying, "No good deed goes unpunished" still stands.

I went out on a limb with this other 'friend' and wouldn't you know it, he burns me too. I film for 4 days and get ready to edit but it ends up, there's no money to pay for the work.

"I talked with our board, Bro. John and we just don't have the money right now, Bro. John, and I uh, I think we'll just have to cancel the project."

I hate to say this sports fans, but I have been burned more by 'so called' Christians than by any of the people in the world system. They seem to just about always keep their word. Why is that?

What has it come down to here? Are we that 'dull of hearing'? Are we just that ignorant of what God's Word says about taking care of our obligations; especially to those of 'the brethren'?

Ole Papa Corleone always said, "keep your enemies close but keep your friends closer."

Go to the music page on the website and look up "Had a Friend".

...yummy

I awoke to the sounds of Sam coming in the back door of the main house.

His cheerful greeting to the house in general more or less set the tone for the day as I sat up and tried to decide whether or not to put on my house shoes before making my way to the bathroom. Our floor has rugs in some places but not in others. A cold floor is not my friend.

I tried to call Di and got her message. She had left earlier to be with our daughter. They were to spend some time together at Denny's. I won't elaborate on my thoughts on that subject. It would be negative and I'm just not going there today.

I wondered where everyone was as I walked across the open field to the back door of the church. The brisk wind was pushing me along as if it were in a hurry to get me to my destination. I hadn't been out in the cold to this extent thus far this year and I immediately thought of the ones that are sleeping out in this on a regular basis.

My friend Steve was entering the church as I arrived. He looked his usual rumpled self and was carrying a big bag of dirty clothing over his shoulder as he held the door for me.

"Good morning my brother", I said as I passed. "Doing some 'maintenance'?" I was referring to the bag of clothes but he answered as 'the janitor', "No I'm off today. I plan on getting some laundry done while no one else is around."

Isn't it funny how we misinterpret what others say? I meant one thing and Steve heard another.

I opened the office door and immediately got to work on finishing up the project from the night before. I suppose I may have spent an hour on it and I had what I wanted ready for the morrow and so I slipped one of my CDs into the computer tray and waited.

In just a moment the first song came up. I thought of the hundreds of songs that Di and I have written and wondered where most of them are. I haven't done a very good job of keeping track of them for the most part. I work on them extensively when they are new but as time goes by and another takes it's place, I lose track of what I did with it unless I am using it in my playlist. his particular CD is probably about ten years old or more.

I think that it would be good to reproduce it. I have a much better sense of what I want them to sound like now and I am definitely a better engineer than when I did them then. I guess, like most things, songs get better with time. The aging, maturing, settling takes place and I get comfortable with the timing and the phrasing and the feel.

Look at me, I've rambled on here for almost 20 minutes now and haven't even noticed the passing of the time. I love it when the flow takes over and the words just "come".

My whole purpose in writing anything on this Thanksgiving Day was to tell all of you how much I love you and how much you mean to me and how often I think of where you are and what you might be doing at just that moment.

Happy Thanksgiving my beautiful ones. Please pray for us as we keep the candle lit here in the inner city.

John

...and the there was....

The day played out like a long string unwinding across the yard on a windy day.

I got up just in time to make the devotional in the Prayer Room. I had missed being there for a few days and really looked forward to seeing everyone and being involved in the fellowship in the Word.

Pastor Bond was delayed and that took a little time out of the meeting at first but everyone got involved in the discussion and brought out many good points until we eventually ran out of time, as usual and finally prayed for the rest of the day; going our separate ways.

I answered the phone over and over again and stayed with it until well after everyone else went home. I like it when its quiet and no one is yelling at someone or something or asking for something you can't get right away, but that another story.

I did get to spend a very pleasant dinner with my best friend. We sat across from each other and smiled that knowing smile, enjoying the knowing without having to say anything. I have loved her for almost 30 years and yet it seems like only a few weeks have passed since I opened that door and she was standing there.

I looked at my watch and realized that I was missing the news. Had it really been that long since I had pulled back the covers and put my feet on the floor, hoping that there was coffee ready? Yes, and to make matters worse I hadn't finished what I had originally set out to do for the day.

I don't ordinarily like distractions but somehow, today had been filled with them and I had been alright with it.

Looking around again I thought,"What have I done today?"

...draggin'

The hours are long; sometimes too long.

I didn't even want to get up today. Have you ever in your life wanted to just stay in bed and let the covers hold you like your mother did when you were first born and cute and ..., well you might not have been cute exactly. Not all babies are cute.

Anyway, I just wanted to roll over onto a nice cool spot on the sheets and drift right back off into 'slumberland' and forget all about how many things I have lined up to do today. Drat!

Of course there's always the phone; your other ego lying there close by just itching to ring. It does.

"Hello... yeah, I was just leaving. How far away did you say you are? Okay, I can be there in about half an hour or so. Can you bring me a, uh, Starbucks when you come? Okay, thanks.... yeah, bye."

Like I said, the hours are just too long.

....what time did you say it is?

The curtains shield the light from coming in our bedroom.

I like to imagine that it is still the middle of the night and I have a lot of sleep hours left to enjoy but alas, the alarm 'enlightens' me as to the actual time and I am swept back to reality. I do my best to ignore what will inevitably be the outcome but I know in the end, I will have to get up.

The cool rain of mid November doesn't help one bit. What better eason for sleeping in?

...as the clouds rolled in.

I watched as the dark clouds framed the horizon like thick drapes on a tinted window.

We had been expecting the rain to arrive a bit earlier, hoping that it would move out and dry up a little before the outdoor concert tomorrow. I wonder now if the rain will indeed move on before we set up.

How often have we planned and planned and then things just don't happen the way we expect? Too many times I suppose but that's human nature isn't it? And why do we always seem to look at things differently than the way God does? I know, "His ways are not our ways and His thoughts are not our thoughts", but that is to be expected since we somehow always seem put more on our plates than we can accomplish and then wonder why things didn't work out the way we thought they would when we were planning them. Go figure.

I'm more and more of the opinion that our egos get tangled up with 'personalities', contrived or not and we think we're more powerful than we really are. God help me. I am beginning to recognize the simple fact that there are just too many things to keep up with in this life nowadays. The simpler the better for me. Now I have to learn how to 'cut back'. Not just on cost factors but on 'work factors' too.

Where is my God time? I'm doing a lot of work but am I doing what He has in mind?

...are we there yet?

I used to ask that very question when I was a youngster.

I was short for my age so I didn't have a very good vantage point to begin with, but even so I often wondered just how far we had gone on our long distance travels. We weren't allowed to sit on our knees so we could see out of the window. We had to sit like "little gentlemen and little ladies" everywhere we went. That meant that all we could really observe were the tops of the trees gliding past our backseat window or the long lines of telephone poles and the wispy West Texas clouds that seemed miles and miles away, high up in the powder blue sky.

"If you ask me that question one more time I'm going to stop this car and paddle your butt!"

How many times have you heard that said on a long trip? We used to see how any times we could get away with it before it was about to happen. I think we had it down to a science and used it as a tool to get back at the stingy people in the front seat that got to see everything first hand and rarely shared the good parts until it was too late.

"Did you see that, Honey?"

"Why gracious me, I don't believe I've ever seen anything like that; have you, Dear?"

Why no Love, I don't believe I have."

"Kids, did you see that?"

"Are we there yet?"